It’s been a rough couple of years for writer / director Andrew Niccol. His last two films, Justin Timberlake sci-fi pic In Time and Stephenie Meyer adaptation The Host, were excoriated by critics and hardly set the box office alight. So you can understand why he might be looking to recapture some of the early magic of Gattaca, teaming back up with that film’s star, Ethan Hawke, for a new untitled project.

Hawke, who also cropped up in Niccol’s Lord Of War, is on to play a fighter pilot who accepts a gig flying drones from Las Vegas. Initially, he’s happy to control the controversial death-dealers and then head back for life with his wife and kids in the suburbs.

Then, however, his conscience starts to itch at his brain, and he starts to wonder if he’s merely creating more terrorists with his missions and worries that he’s in a never-ending conflict.

Niccol wrote the script and aims to kick off shooting in February. Hopefully he’ll get back to the slightly more subtle messages of Gattaca and feature less of the clumsy polemics of In Time.